Students may not know it, but PNW is fighting climate change on several fronts.
“I think most students are at least aware that climate change is real and it’s a problem. I don’t know if most of them are aware of just how serious it is though,” said Jason Steffel, junior Biology major and president of the Environmental Club. “It is an existential threat to human society, maybe not just yet but it will be in the future, and I don’t think most people understand that.”
But the university is trying to better educate students about these environmental problems and potential solutions.
“Many of our classes and our curricula center around sustainability, efficiency or environmental awareness,” said Kathryn Rowberg, an associate professor of Chemistry who teaches Science and Environmental Issues. “For instance, almost every discipline now has a course relating to environmental sustainability or environmental issues. We also have summer camps. I just ran one on environmental science for high school kids.”
In addition to courses, the university is also doing plenty of research regarding the environment.
“We have the Water Institute that’s doing research because when you talk about climate change there’s a lot of issues and one of them is water,” said Rowberg. “We have Energy Efficiency with [Physics professor] Robert Kramer. He has a wealth of knowledge and just a crazy amount of very interesting research projects.”
The university is also putting environmentally conscious ideas into action.
“Purdue has put in native flowering plant gardens, we also have bees on campus and they put in [electric vehicle] chargers. They have done a bunch of little things to try and move forward,” said Rowberg
Students have also gotten involved.
“[The university] has been really supportive of the Environment Club which is really nice,” said Steffel. “We go to a lot of little events where we talk about the environment. We are hoping to do STEM on the road later this year where we go to places like high schools and present what we are about.
“When it’s warmer out we’ve done volunteering events where we go to Gabis Arboretum and plant trees, clean up trash, and remove invasive species,” he said.
While a lot is going on to raise awareness of climate change, Steffel said people can do more.
“I think the biggest thing students can do realistically is to be aware of what’s going on, support causes that help the environment and probably most importantly vote for people who are going to help the environment,” he said. “The top 1% of the wealthy in this country pollute more than the bottom 40%, so when you look at what you and I can do, really our biggest tool is just to support causes, donate to causes and put politicians in office who care.”